Preview
  • We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

  • By: Karen Joy Fowler
  • Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
  • Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (1,931 ratings)

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We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

By: Karen Joy Fowler
Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
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Publisher's summary

The New York Times best-selling author of The Jane Austen Book Club introduces a middle-class American family that is ordinary in every way but one in this novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize.

Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “I was raised with a chimpanzee”, she explains. “I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern’s expulsion...she was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half and I loved her as a sister”. As a child, Rosemary never stopped talking. Then, something happened, and Rosemary wrapped herself in silence.

In We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler weaves her most accomplished work to date - a tale of loving but fallible people whose well-intentioned actions lead to heartbreaking consequences.

©2012 Karen Joy Fowler (P)2013 Penguin Audio
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Critic reviews

"A novel so readably juicy and surreptitiously smart, it deserves all the attention it can get.... [Its] fresh diction and madcap plot bend the tone toward comedy, but it never mislays its solemn raison d’être. Monkeyshines aside, this is a story of Everyfamily in which loss engraves relationships, truth is a soulful stalker and coming-of-age means facing down the mirror, recognizing the shape-shifting notion of self." (Barbara Kingsolver, The New York Times Book Review)

"Fowler’s interests here are in what sets humans apart from their fellow primates. Cognitive, language and memory skills all come into playful question. But the heart of the novel - and it has a big, warm, loudly beating heart throughout - is in its gradually pieced-together tale of family togetherness, disruption and reconciliation. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is Fowler at her best, mixing cerebral and emotional appeal together in an utterly captivating manner." (The Seattle Times)

"Elegantly and humorously orchestrated.... Knitting together Rosemary’s at times poignant, at times hilarious scraps of uncovered memories, Fowler creates a fantastical tale of raw, animalistic love." (O, The Oprah Magazine)

What listeners say about We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Average customer ratings
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Completely Beside Myself! Read This!

Wow. I'm completely beside myself. This book hooked me and delivered. It made me laugh, cry, and think. It taught me something new and changed my mind about some issues. It reminded me. It gave me hope.

Fern and Rosemary, are two sisters who are separated. As sister separations tend to do, this act unhinged the family, but there is hope for a brighter tomorrow. I can't say more without spoiling it for you, so just trust me on this one.

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17 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful Book but Robotically Read

If you could sum up We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves in three words, what would they be?

Brilliant and funny

Any additional comments?

I ended up reading rather than listening to this book. I don't like to write negatively about anyone--or think I don't--but the way this is read somehow keeps you from hearing the very clever humor and style.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Try to keep it all separate.

This is far too beautifully a written and read book not to experience; even if you have to hurt a little bit. You won't regret this.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Gripping and suspenseful. Cannot predict where this story will go.

Too many books follow a well recognized format. Written in first person, this story is refreshingly different in that respect one cannot predict where the characters will end up. While disturbingly sad in content at times, this reader found the story intellectually stimulating, emotionally interesting and more than worthwhile.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A madcap plot

I acquired a habit from my mother and grandmother of reading local authors and reading books that were prize winners or short listed. My mother always said reading local author showed support and they were easier to contact with my comments about their books. This book by Karen Joy Fowler fits both categories she is local and a prize winner. This book won the 2014 PEN/Faulkner award for fiction and was short-listed for the 2014 Man-Booker award for fiction.

The author managed to hold back the key fact or surprise of the book until the book’s second quarter, no small authorial feat. (You are not going to find out from me). The plot turns on a volatile moment in behavioral psychology, the late 1970s, when Skinner dogmatists were fighting it out with proponents of a more nuanced, evolutionary grasp of behavior. The novel’s narrator, Rosemary Cook, claims to care about none of this. Her snappy storytelling and occasional wise cracks, use of the second person engages the reader/observer directly. This is a story of every family in which loss engraves relationships.
Fowler is an excellent writer and oh, what a way she has with words. I suggest you keep a dictionary handy. One of my favorite narrators, Orlagh Cassidy narrated the book.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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Enjoyable

I listened to this every night before bed. The narrator had a nice voice, and conveyed well the personality of the lead character. The story made a very uncommon situation feel relatable.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

entertaining and thought provoking

loved every bit of it and will recommend it to others. narrator's reading of it was tiresome however because a sing sing constantly repeating cadance voice was used throughout that was almost as boring as a monotone.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

compelling and unpredictable

It was a very enjoyable book. I liked the way the author told the story by jumping around in time and and brought the reader along by only revealing small pieces of information about characters and plot at a time. It was a story about the enduring love among siblings even when their lives are turned upside down.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Loved every minute’

Beautiful storytelling of love, loss and how our memories shape us as we grow into adults!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

WARNING: Terrible Narration!

If you could sum up We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves in three words, what would they be?

It took me three chapters to finally realize that this wasn't, indeed, a robotic voice reading but an actual person! I am intrigued by the great text and story line but I have to squint and concentrate hard just to understand because Cassidy's performance is truly horrible. She sounds like a robot, her rhythm is steady, her dynamics dry. There is no connection between her voice and the text - it's painful to listen to. If you appreciate well acted narration, DON'T buy this one! I'm looking on Amazon right now for a used book that I can read on my own.

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1 person found this helpful